GRAFTON - In the spring of your junior year, an average teenager might be touring colleges or thinking about a summer job. But for Kateryna Savienkova, an exchange student from Ukraine attending Jersey Community High School, making plans was impossible. On June 3rd, the war in Ukraine had reached day 100 and Kateryna was still unclear where she would spend the next year of her life. Today, Kateryna has completed a full academic year of high school in America, an opportunity she worked hard to receive and one where she made the most of every day. Living with her host family, Jim, Carla, and Roanna Newton, in Grafton, Kateryna has made the most of her time. At school, she participated in cross country, and bowling, and was an honor roll student. Back in her home country of Ukraine a much different story played out for her family and friends. As the war continued, devastating images came in each day. “Sometimes it was unbearable.” Kateryna explains, “The continuous
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